There has not been a single line of news in the Chinese state-controlled media about the dramatic escape of Chen Guangcheng.

But that is hardly surprising: the authorities here have been using censorship, thuggery and intimidation to stifle news about the blind activist for the past six years.

I have had first-hand experience of this since 2006, when I first started covering a case that must rank as one of the most egregious human rights violations of the past decade in China.

During the spring festival of that year, I and a another reporter tried to visit Dongshigu village, where the blind human rights activist was under illegal house arrest because he had exposed forced abortions and other abuses of China's one-child policy by over-zealous local officials.

As soon as we arrived, a burly man in a dark jacket told us we were not allowed in the village. "These are the orders of the city government," he said. He refused to show identification so we carried on past him.

Further on, progress was blocked by four men who pushed and shoved us back where we had come. "You cannot enter," they said. "Sorry." There was a brief standoff that attracted a crowd of curious villagers. Then Chen's guards – by now numbering about 10 – manhandled us back into the van.

Locals had already grown used to such incidents. The previous year, three lawyers tried to sneak in by disguising themselves in peasant clothes and riding in on bicycles. Not protected by a foreign passport, they were taught a violent lesson about the limits of the law in China. Such beatings were to become all too common in Dongshigu as bloggers, human rights activists and journalists attempted to interview Chen and his family.

There were few more glaring examples of the central government's inability or willingness to enforce promises of "rule by law" and transparency.

In August 2006, Chen was sentenced to four years in prison, ostensibly for disrupting traffic and damaging property, but his family remained under tight surveillance.

In 2008, I tried to visit her. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I was in the nearby county town of Linyi for a story about organic farming but when that job was done, I caught a taxi to Dongshigu.

Little had changed. If anything, there seemed to be more thugs with just as little hesitation to rough up outsiders who wanted to visit the family the authorities wanted the world to forget.

The authorities have countered with a three-pronged strategy: security has been tightened, censors have choked almost all news of Chen in the state media, and teams of local officials have tried to blacken his name among the 440 Dongshigu villagers with rumours that Chen is a liar and a traitor. Earlier this year, I heard similar allegations from a central government official, who claimed to have been told that Chen had bought three homes with the money he'd been given by foreign governments.

I asked for evidence. None has been forthcoming.

Those same officials have long poured scorn on microblog and foreign media reports of the beatings inflicted on Chen and his wife, and the harassment of their child and wider family. How, I wonder, will they respond to the first video made of Chen after his escape, when he said of his treatment: "The reality is even worse" than the reports. His safety is not yet assured. Between 90 and 100 guards were involved in his detention, he said. Many will now be trying to track him down.

But if he does remain at liberty, the question will then be whether the government machinery of denial and violence is cranked up another notch to inflict retribution on the escapee's family, or whether the central authorities will finally realise they have allowed an indefensible wrong to go on for too long. Or to put it in simpler terms, Is China a country ruled by law or not?